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TIL we frequently abbreviate Christmas as X-mas because of ancient tradition. X is the Greek letter “chi” which is an abbreviation for the word “Christ” in Greek.

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80wV TIL that although you can’t change the genes you inherit, you can change whether they are turned on or off.
0dPjy TIL the first Internet search engine was “Archie”, which was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a postgraduate student at McGill University in Montreal. It’s still around today and is considered a useful way to index FTP (File Transfer Protocol) archives.
QJ6Xk TIL in 1958 Mao Zedong began a campaign to eliminate the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, leading to a severe ecological imbalance and contributing to the Great Chinese Famine where 15-55 million people starved to death.
LQ6YZ TIL that in 2015, a M2 machine gun was returned to an Army depot for refurbishment. It was found to have been the 324th M2 made, and that it had been in service since 1921.
BgmWD TIL that in February of 1993, Kansas City, Missouri radio station KXXR changed its name to KISF (Kiss FM). As a publicity stunt to announce the change, it played Prince's 1986 song "Kiss" for 24 hours straight